Can SMS Upgrade Beat Image Problem?

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May 11, 1998

Can SMS Upgrade Beat Image Problem?

Microsoft cites improvements, but early testers are split

By Richard Adhikari

s there a future for Microsoft's Systems Management Server? Early versions had problems, so some users swore off SMS forever. But others say SMS is fine when implemented properly.

SMS 2.0, which has been in beta since late last year, has been rewritten to take advantage of key technologies, the most important being Web Based Enterprise Management (WBEM). The new SMS is also much more flexible, Microsoft says. SMS 2.0 uses a concept called `collections,' which lets IT a dministrators target a group for software distribution. Microsoft has also made SMS very dynamic so it can automatically add new users to any designated group.

Some users ran into problems with earlier versions of SMS and refuse to look at the new version. For example, a senior IS manager at a government facility on the West Coast implemented version 1.0 on 200 desktop PCs, but the software caused so many problems that he uninstalled it. Among his complaints: SMS didn't work well with non-Microsoft applications, especially WordPerfect, which his department had standardized on.

Not every user has had it so bad. Andrew Drooker, director of technology and infrastructure at Turner Broadcasting Sales in Atlanta, uses SMS 1.2 and hasn't had any problems with it. He uses it to run 1,000 PCs and notebooks around the world. "When I deployed Office97, SMS pushed it out to 300 people in two hours," Drooker says. "We didn't have any trouble."

Even non-Microsoft programs have run smoothly with SMS, Drooker says. For example, PeopleSoft is widely used at Turner Broadcasting, and it's "known for not being compatible with Office97 or staying current with Microsoft," Drooker says. Yet the software ran under SMS without a hitch. He's now doing a beta test on SMS 2.0, which he says is even better.

Microsoft plans to test SMS 2.0 into the summer and possibly longer. "We have to make sure that 2.0 is able to take over from 1.2 and provide a seamless upgrade," says Michael Emanuel, product manager of systems management infrastructure and products at Microsoft.

SMS is a series of highly distributed services that sit behind the file servers the user is accessing. For example, on a 16-bit machine using IPX--a Novell server running a 16-bit operating system--SMS sits behind that Novell server and the user continues to use IPX. The server doesn't need a specific connection to SMS regardless of what operating system they use.

SMS Blowup
But problems with an earlier versio n of SMS left Tom Reynolds wary. Back in early 1996, the senior network engineer at GMAC Commercial Mortgage in Horsham, Pa., deployed version 1.1 at three test sites. "We had problems with the reliability of inventory collection," Reynolds says. "Program group control didn't work for Windows 95 back then. SMS 1.1 really blew up in my face."

Reynolds says that could have happened because he was implementing an early version of SMS. Also, he'd just rolled out Windows 95, then relatively new, onto his desktops. "We were so far ahead of the game in having Windows 95 at a corporate level," Reynolds says. "Microsoft didn't expect to have large-scale implementations like ours."

Microsoft admits that early versions of SMS--earlier than 1.2--were sensitive to the environment in which they were built. "You needed to be very careful in your planning," says Microsoft's Emanuel. "The people who had trouble with SMS 1.0 and 1.1 probably took SMS to be a shrink-wrapped product and tried to install it in very large environments without planning. In 2.0, we added our knowledge of how people are installing and using the system into the documentation and setup."

Reynolds is testing SMS 2.0 at GMAC Mortgage, but only because of the year 2000 problem. "It took a major mandate for this inventory thing to really kick me back towards SMS 2.0," he says. Reynolds is inventorying software versions and hardware platform makes, models, and BIOS versions as part of his company's year 2000 effort.

Why SMS instead of something else? "We're 100% Microsoft, and it's the solution that best fits Microsoft," Reynolds says. GMAC Mortgage runs Windows NT on the back end, Microsoft SQL Server for its database platform, and Windows NT workstations and Windows 95 PCs for the desktop.

Also, Reynolds has heard that SMS 2.0 works better with Windows 95 clients than did previous releases. "It looks like they cleaned up a lot of things--program group control and the way inventory is done," he says. Still, Reyn olds remains skeptical. "I haven't got deep enough into the beta group to really know how it's going to pan out," he adds, "and if the cleanups that look good on the surface will take care of the problems I had."

Drooker of Turner Broadcasting is convinced that SMS 2.0 tops earlier versions. "It's got a wizard that walks you through how to install SMS and SQL Server, so everything's integrated," he says. SMS requires users to install SQL Server as its database, so "your network administrator doesn't have to be a database administrator as well," he adds.

Version 2.0 also uses WBEM, which relies on object-oriented models. The object-oriented approach offers one way to describe data from all enterprise data sources, says Microsoft's Emanuel. It also means vendors can offer standard data classes and properties, and add extensions to them.

"It will also let you link objects so you can tie data from different sources together so you can get an enterprisewide view of your resources," Eman uel explains. "You'll be able to track problems with an application, with the network, or systems."

WBEM "means that everything you used to be able to do from the user interface of SMS you can now do from any management program," Emanuel adds. This will let companies plug SMS into enterprisewide management frameworks such as IBM's Tivoli and Computer Associates' Unicenter for management from one console. "From the architectural point of view, WBEM is the most important thing we've done," Emanuel says.

Unlimited Groups
The collections concept lets SMS 2.0 users create groups out of any conceivable entities. "You can have a group of users, a group of machines, a group of machines with WordPerfect Executive Suite--anything you can make a query result out of," Emanuel says.

That lets users target resources for management or software distribution. That, in turn, allows for more dynamic management. "Say you want to distribute this software to everybody in marketing next Tuesd ay," says Emanuel. "If someone joins marketing after you set the rule but before you send out the software, they'll be included in the group. We're resolving the groups dynamically on a regular basis."

But users can't just slap SMS into their system and expect it to work, Emanuel says. "However, if people learn about it, they'll see how powerful it is," he adds.

Turner Broadcasting's Drooker is learning as he goes. He's managed to use SMS 2.0 to inventory mobile users, which version 1.2 wouldn't allow. But he had to find a workaround first--SMS doesn't run over NT's RAS (remote access server) feature, so Drooker had to set new environment variables on notebooks.

Now, when notebook users dial in, their machines tell SMS to skip part of the login script. "You can still use the product for what it was designed for," Drooker says. "You just have to think about it."

Read sidebar, " Tips For Smooth SMS Installation ."

Read sidebar, " WBEM: The Heart Of SMS ."